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Following the fast spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19) across Europe and North America in March 2020, many people started stockpiling commodities like toilet paper. Despite the high relevance for public authorities to adequately address stockpiling behavior, empirical studies on the psychological underpinnings of toilet paper stockpiling are still scarce. In this study, we investigated the relation between personality traits, perceived threat of Covid-19, and stockpiling of toilet paper in an online survey (N = 996) across 22 countries. Results suggest that people who felt more threatened by Covid-19 stockpiled more toilet paper. Further, a predisposition towards Emotionality predicted the perceived threat of Covid-19 and affected stockpiling behavior indirectly. Finally, Conscientiousness was related to toilet paper stockpiling, such that individuals higher in Conscientiousness tended to stockpile more toilet paper. These results emphasize the importance of clear communication by public authorities acknowledging anxiety and, at the same time, transmitting a sense of control.

Despite Palestinian university students’ problems with the Test of English as a Foreign Language Internet-based Test, no researchers approached this research area in the Palestinian English as a Foreign Language context. The present study attempted to answer a question focusing on Palestinian university students’ problems with the reading sections of the Test of English as a Foreign Language Internet-based Test and the revised Test of English as a Foreign Language paper-delivered test. The participants were 65 fourth-year students studying English at Al-Aqsa University. The researcher employed four instruments: a test, a group semi-structured interview, and two individual semi-structured interviews. Results showed the students’ problems with the reading sections of the two types of tests, such as the irrelevance of the topics of the tests to the students’ content background knowledge, students’ lack of exposure to lengthy passages, students’ slow reading speed, and the students’ lack of linguistic proficiency. Additionally, the study offered many recommendations for Educational Testing Service experts and Al-Aqsa university students and instructors.

Aging inevitably gives rise to many late-life challenges and transitions that impose threats for one’s physical and mental health, which can greatly impact our well-being and quality of life. Hence, the key to successful aging may not be the absence of these challenges and transitions, but the ability to demonstrate resilience to them. We recently started a large-scale study (N > 10.000) among older adults (55 years or older) in the Netherlands, with the aim to understand resilience as an emergent property that arises through the interplay between various (risk and protective) factors from different domains. Participants are asked to complete online questionnaires and tests that cover a multitude of relevant factors from multiple domains (e.g., physical, psychological, cognitive, social, environmental). Relationships between those factors will be analysed through network analysis, in which conditional dependencies between factors are depicted in a network of nodes. In this way, critical resilience (protective) and risk factors can be identified. This study offers a unique possibility to obtain insights into the factors that characterize and contribute to resilience in old age and thereby assist in generating hypotheses for follow up work. The contribution of this study in the growing field of resilience research, as well as the limitations, are discussed accordingly.

Background The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has led to dramatic changes worldwide in people’s everyday lives. To combat the pandemic, many governments have implemented social distancing, quarantine, and stay-at-home orders. There is limited research on the impact of such extreme measures on mental health. Objective The goal of this study was to examine whether stay-at-home orders produced differential changes in mental health symptoms using internet search queries on a national scale. Methods In the United States, individual states vary in their adoption of measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19; as of March 23, 2020, 11 of the 50 states had issued stay-at-home orders. The staggered rollout of stay-at-home measures across the United States allows us to investigate whether these measures impact mental health by exploring variations in mental health search queries across the states. This paper examines the changes in mental health search queries on Google between March 16-23, 2020, across each state and Washington, DC. Specifically, this paper examines differential changes in mental health searches based on patterns of search activity following issuance of stay-at-home orders in these states compared to all other states. The participants were all the people who searched mental health terms in Google between March 16-23. Between March 16-23, 11 states underwent stay-at-home orders to prevent the transmission of COVID-19. Outcomes included search terms measuring anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive, negative thoughts, irritability, fatigue, anhedonia, concentration, insomnia, and suicidal ideation. Results Analyzing over 10 million search queries using generalized additive mixed models, the results suggested that the implementation of stay-at-home orders are associated with a significant flattening of the curve for searches for suicidal ideation, anxiety, negative thoughts, and sleep disturbances, with the most prominent flattening associated with suicidal ideation and anxiety. Conclusions These results suggest that, despite decreased social contact, mental health search queries increased rapidly prior to the issuance of stay-at-home orders, and these changes dissipated following the announcement and enactment of these orders. Although more research is needed to examine sustained effects, these results suggest mental health symptoms were associated with an immediate leveling off following the issuance of stay-at-home orders.

Mental health problems are becoming increasingly prevalent across college campuses. Past research has found that negative affect and frustration of basic psychological needs contribute to the development of depressive symptoms, but there is limited research which compares whether these are antecedents or concomitants of depressive symptoms. The present set of studies aimed to distinguish the differential associations of affect and need frustration on depressive symptoms. Students (Nstudy1 = 379; Nstudy2 = 235) completed measures on negative affect, need frustration (e.g., relatedness, competence, and autonomy), and depressive symptoms over an academic year and during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In both samples, fully cross-lagged path models were used to examine the relation between need frustration, negative affect, and depressive symptoms over time. Across both studies, basic psychological need frustration was the only consistent predictor of both negative affect and depressive symptoms over time, suggesting that need frustration is an antecedent of depressive symptoms over time, and especially during vulnerable time periods. Additionally, in Study 2, reports from close others confirm that need frustration is the largest indicator of depressive presentation in students. These results highlight the relative importance of basic psychological need frustration in predicting depressive symptoms in university students.

Highlights • We conducted an online randomized controlled trial for a web-based intervention. • The intervention comprised normative comparison, psychoeducation, and a short quiz. • Participants were Japanese adults aged 20 years or older and scored AUDIT ≥ 8. • The weekly drinking quantity at the two- and six-month follow-ups decreased., Aims This study aimed (1) to delineate how a web-based intervention affects the problem drinking behaviors of Japanese adults and (2) to examine the moderating effects of disorder levels and alcohol outcome expectancies on intervention outcomes. Methods We implemented an online two-armed parallel-group randomized controlled trial with 546 Japanese adults. Adults aged 20 years or older and who scored eight or higher on the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test were included in this study. Participants were randomly allocated to the intervention group or the waitlist/control group. The intervention comprised assessment of drinking behavior, personalized normative feedback, psychoeducation about the consequences of problem drinking, and a short quiz. The outcomes were weekly drinking quantity and abstinent days, largest drinking quantity in one day, and alcohol-related consequences reported at baseline and at one-, two-, and six-month follow-ups. A mixed-effects model regression was conducted to compare the intervention and control groups. Results The attrition rates at each follow-up were 52.93%, 49.45%, and 32.60%, respectively. The time × condition interaction effect on weekly drinking quantity was significant at the two- and six-month follow-ups, d = 0.28, 95% CI [0.04, 0.51], d = 0.34, 95% CI [0.05, 0.63], respectively. Moderations related to the intervention effect were not statistically significant. Conclusion A web-based intervention was found to be effective for two and six months only on drinking quantity measures of Japanese adults with problem drinking. Limitations including high drop-out rates in are discussed.

The purpose of this article is to describe the theory of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) and its application to PK–12 education for behavior analysts working in schools. CRP is an educational framework that asserts that successful teachers of African American students help their students gain three repertoires: (1) sociopolitical awareness, (2) cultural competence, and (3) academic excellence. The CRP framework was designed to counter the effects that racial bias has on the academic and disciplinary experiences of some students of color. This article suggests that applied behavior analysis and CRP, when used together, may strengthen educators’ efforts to reduce the effects of racism that some students of color experience. The authors first explain the tenets of CRP based on the work of Ladson-Billings (1995a, 1995b). Next, points of convergence between ABA and CRP are described. Finally, the authors offer recommendations for behavior analysts to consider when applying CRP in schools through the provision of examples of strategies and tactics derived from the behavioral literature that align with the CRP framework. The framework presented in this article has implications for behavior analysts interested in applying culturally relevant practices to their work as educators.

As part of the child-rearing process, situations that invite difficult conversations will inevitably arise. Oftentimes, there are no guidelines or structure for how to discuss topics such as sex education, systemic racism, bullying, grieving, and gun violence. Accordingly, adults may feel at a loss for how to address difficult topics and may even avoid difficult conversations completely. When adults choose to have these conversations, they may imitate the conversations their caregivers had with them, and therefore further the cycle of systemic racism, often unknowingly and unintentionally. Racial injustice has been a core part of the American experience since the founding of the republic; hence, conversations about systemic racism are long overdue. The need has significantly increased, given the current socio-political climate. Social justice may be a sensitive topic for some, but it is a needed conversation for all, including children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Currently available curricula and teaching manuals in the Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) literature include little or no resources for caregivers on how to address systemic racism with their children on the spectrum. Children with ASD should be educated about how they, and their families, can combat systemic racism in their everyday lives. The present paper addresses this gap in available treatment resources by offering practical suggestions and guidelines for how adults can address the topic of systemic racism with children on the autism spectrum to educate them and prepare them to contribute to a more equitable and just future.

The human voice communicates emotion through two different types of vocalizations: nonverbal vocalizations (brief non-linguistic sounds like laughs) and speech prosody (tone of voice). Research examining recognizability of emotions from the voice has mostly focused on either nonverbal vocalizations or speech prosody, and included few categories of positive emotions. In two preregistered experiments, we compare human listeners' (total n = 400) recognition performance for 22 positive emotions from nonverbal vocalizations (n = 880) to that from speech prosody (n = 880). The results show that listeners were more accurate in recognizing most positive emotions from nonverbal vocalizations compared to prosodic expressions. Furthermore, acoustic classification experiments with machine learning models demonstrated that positive emotions are expressed with more distinctive acoustic patterns for nonverbal vocalizations as compared to speech prosody. Overall, the results suggest that vocal expressions of positive emotions are communicated more successfully when expressed as nonverbal vocalizations compared to speech prosody., Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 45 (4), ISSN:0191-5886, ISSN:1573-3653

Background Anxiety and depressive disorders can be chronic and disabling. Although there are effective treatments, only a fraction of those impaired receive treatment. Predictors of treatment-seeking and treatment receipt could be informative for initiatives aiming to tackle the burden of untreated anxiety and depression. Aims To investigate sociodemographic characteristics associated with treatment-seeking and treatment receipt. Method Two binary retrospective reports of lifetime treatment-seeking (n = 44 810) and treatment receipt (n = 37 346) were regressed on sociodemographic factors (age, gender, UK ethnic minority background, educational attainment, household income, neighbourhood deprivation and social isolation) and alternative coping strategies (self-medication with alcohol/drugs and self-help) in UK Biobank participants with lifetime generalised anxiety or major depressive disorder. Analyses were also stratified by gender. Results Treatment access was more likely in those who reported use of self-help strategies, with university-level education and those from less economically advantaged circumstances (household income £100 000). Men who self-medicated and/or had a vocational qualification were also less likely to seek treatment. Conclusions This work on retrospective reports of treatment-seeking and treatment receipt at any time of life replicates known associations with treatment-seeking and treatment receipt during time of treatment need. More work is required to understand whether improving rates of treatment-seeking improves prognostic outcomes for individuals with anxiety or depression.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically uprooted the lives of families around the world. Families living with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be particularly affected due to being abruptly deprived of their usual in-person support from applied behavior analysis (ABA) service providers. This article gives how-to instructions on 18 simple acceptance and commitment training (ACT) programs that can be used as supplements to ongoing ABA services to support children with ASD whose verbal repertoires may play a part in the challenges they are facing during the current crisis. We describe several challenges that have been frequently reported by families and ABA practitioners during the pandemic. For each behavioral challenge, we provide a brief practical description, brief behavioral conceptual description, and how-to guidance on implementing ACT procedures that address each behavioral challenge at a functional level. The Appendix contains child-friendly worksheets for practitioners to use as visual supports while implementing the intervention procedures.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about significant stress and anxiety for many parents around the world. Psychological flexibility and self-care are fundamental aspects of psychological health (Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010). For parents, shaping these processes may help promote family nurturance, support children’s prosocial behavior, and provide effective and consistent use of evidence-based parenting “kernels”. The goal of this article is to provide practitioners with evidence-based tools that will support psychological flexibility, self-care, and positive parenting behaviors in caregivers during COVID-19 and beyond.

PurposeObjective measures of listening effort have been gaining prominence, as they provide metrics to quantify the difficulty of understanding speech under a variety of circumstances. A key challenge has been to develop paradigms that enable the complementary measurement of subjective listening effort in a quantitatively precise manner. In this study, we introduce a novel decision-making paradigm to examine age-related and individual differences in subjective effort during listening.MethodOlder and younger adults were presented with spoken sentences mixed with speech-shaped noise at multiple signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). On each trial, subjects were offered the choice between completing an easier listening trial (presented at +20 dB SNR) for a smaller monetary reward and completing a harder listening trial (presented at either +4, 0, −4, −8, or −12 dB SNR) for a greater monetary reward. By varying the amount of the reward offered for the easier option, the subjective value of performing effortful listening trials at each SNR could be assessed.ResultsOlder adults discounted the value of effortful listening to a greater degree than young adults, opting to accept less money in order to avoid more difficult SNRs. Additionally, older adults with poorer hearing and smaller working memory capacities were more likely to choose easier trials; however, in younger adults, no relationship with hearing or working memory was found. Self-reported measures of economic status did not affect these relationships.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that subjective listening effort depends on factors including, but not necessarily limited to, hearing and working memory. Additionally, this study demonstrates that economic decision-making paradigms can be a useful approach for assessing subjective listening effort and may prove beneficial in future research.

One of the central processes of language acquisition is word learning. While many species have been shown to learn word-object associations (e.g., Lyn & Savage-Rumbaugh, 2000; Kaminski, Call, & Fischer, 2004), humans understand the meanings of words and know that that words refer to certain objects, actions, or ideas, not merely recognize associative pairings. This paper explores the role of socially contingent responsivity in the development of the referential understanding of words.

Hallucinated voices cause high levels of distress and disability. Current theories suggest that insight-related beliefs, about internal or external origin, perceived source location, and appraisals of controllability are important in mediating the impact of these experiences but previous findings have been mixed. We report two open code and open data network analytic studies of items in the Psychotic Symptoms Ratings Scale for auditory verbal hallucinations (PSYRATS-AH) in a large sample of patients with hallucinated voices to examine the network structure of items at (1) first assessment, and (2) differences over two consecutive assessments during a wait-list period. Networks were generated using least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and extended Bayesian information criterion (EBIC) with node predictability. In Study 1 (N = 386), we report that insight-related items made a negligible contribution to hallucinated voices and the controllability appraisal made at most a modest contribution. Items relating to distress and negative content were the most central and most predicted by the wider network. In Study 2 (N = 204), we tested the longitudinal stability of the structure of hallucinated voices over a period of several months, finding a small change in total hallucination score and global strength but no clear evidence for an alteration in the structural relationship. The insight-related and controllability items remained as least influential over time. Insight-related beliefs and controllability appraisals may contribute less than previously thought to distressing hallucinated voices although we do not discount that other appraisals may remain important. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s00406-020-01166-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

With the rise of experimental research in the social sciences, numerous methods to elicit and classify people’s risk attitudes in the laboratory have evolved. However, evidence suggests that attitudes towards risk may vary considerably when measured with different methods. Based on a within-subject experimental design using four widespread risk preference elicitation tasks, we find that the different methods indeed give rise to considerably varying estimates of individual and aggregate level risk preferences. Conducting simulation exercises to obtain benchmarks for subjects’ behavior, we find that the observed heterogeneity in risk preference estimates across methods is qualitatively similar to the heterogeneity arising from independent random draws from the choice distributions observed in the experiment. Our study, however, provides evidence that subjects are surprisingly well aware of the variation in the riskiness of their choices. We argue that this calls into question the common interpretation of variation in revealed risk preferences as being inconsistent. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10683-020-09674-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Schizotypal personality traits show similarity with schizophrenia at various levels of analysis. It is generally agreed that schizotypal personality is multidimensional; however, it is still debated whether impulsive nonconformity should be incorporated into theories and measurement of schizotypy. In addition, relatively little is known about the network structure of the four-dimensional model of schizotypal personality. To estimate the network structure of schizotypy, we used data from participants recruited from the community (N = 11,807) who completed the short version of the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences, a widespread self-report instrument that assesses the positive, negative, disorganised and impulsive domains of schizotypy. We performed community detection, then examined differences between communities in terms of centralities and compared the strength of edges within and between communities. We found communities that almost perfectly corresponded to the a priori-defined subscales (93% overlap, normalised mutual information = 0.74). Items in the disorganisation community had higher closeness centrality relative to items in the other communities (Cliff’s Δs ranged from 0.55 to 0.83) and weights of edges within the disorganisation community were stronger as compared to the negative schizotypy and impulsive nonconformity communities (Cliff’s Δs = 0.33). Our findings imply that the inclusion of impulsive nonconformity items does not dilute the classical three-factor structure of positive, negative and disorganised schizotypy. The high closeness centrality of disorganisation concurs with theories positing that cognitive slippage and associative loosening are core features of the schizophrenic phenotype. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s00406-019-01078-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Diachronic studies have played an increasingly important role in recent Cognitive Linguistics. This introductory paper provides an overview of some major lines of research in this field, starting with the inherently panchronic approach that characterizes most flavors of usage-based theory from Cognitive Grammar to recent complex adaptive systems approaches. In particular, the “constructionist turn” and the “quantitative turn” in Diachronic Cognitive Linguistics are discussed in detail. Diachronic Cognitive Linguistics is introduced as a multi-faceted, dynamic framework that aims at providing a holistic and nuanced picture of the complex interplay between language, cognition, and cultural evolution. In addition, this paper introduces the contributions to the present volume in some detail and discusses their relation to current research trends and paradigms within the broader framework of Diachronic Cognitive Linguistics.

Generally, learning outcomes are not always as expected; instead, they show a degree of variation depending on various factors. Likewise, despite the fact of providing writing instruments in Saudi EFL classrooms, the outcomes are not always as expected. The reasons may range from classroom atmosphere to individual cognition and many other related variants around. However, it is a small attempt in teachers’ perspective to see if anything is lacking in the implementation of ‘teaching writing strategies’ for EFL classrooms. To verify this assumption between practicality and literature, this paper intends to explore ‘the implementation of writing strategies of faculty’ during teaching writing skills. In addition, this paper also attempts to identify what sort of discourse tools and metacognitive strategies university faculty are incorporating in their teaching, and what is ignored or not used up to the mark while enhancing Saudi EFL students’ meta-cognitive awareness. To collect responses for this study, a survey questionnaire was administered among 36 English language educators of the Jazan region. The results of this study revealed that there is a component that was given minor importance during teaching, though teachers used other strategies and tools extensively. Furthermore, one of the aims of the study is to demonstrate how discourse can be used to offer a solution in the present scenario. In a nutshell, this research recommends the significance of the neglected subcomponent and its importance in improving writing metacognition.

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is one of the most popular statistical methods employed in psychological research. Despite its widespread usage, the appropriateness of the ways in which ANOVA is used in practice is not well-discussed. For instance, ANOVAs are frequently used as exploratory data analysis, even in confirmatory studies with explicit research questions and hypotheses. Such misapplication may invalidate some ANOVA conventions, resulting in reduced statistical power of detecting effects of interest, and even threatening the validity of research conclusions. There are many widely-used ANOVA conventions, such as conducting post-hoc and simple effect analysis only when the main effect and interaction are significant, performing more ANOVAs by collapsing or separating one factor depending on the statistical significance of a higher-order interaction, and so on. This paper first evaluates the appropriateness of these conventions, then discusses the potential motivations possibly misunderstood by researchers, and provides practical suggestions. Moreover, this paper proposes to control the Type I error rate with Hypothesis-based Type I Error Rate (HER). Not only does HER consider the number of tests, but it also emphasizes the logical relationships among tests in rejecting the null hypothesis of research interest. Furthermore, this paper uses concreate examples to introduce the simple interaction analysis. For many studies, this technique can employ the most straightforward interaction to test effects of interest. This paper additionally reviews ANOVA limitations and its alternative methods. Pre-registration and open science are recommended to provide clarity for the selection of appropriate ANOVA tests in both confirmatory and exploratory studies.

The prosodic systems of the world’s languages vary widely in their complexity. In this paper, we report on a prosodic pattern in Žiri Slovenian, which displays an intricate set of interactions between tone, stress, quantity, and vowel quality. Some of the prosodic patterns are well motivated (e.g. the preference of High tone syllables to be stressed) while others lack phonetic or phonological motivation (e.g. the preference of long vowels to fall on the second syllable of a trochaic foot). Žiri also displays a rare case of interaction of prosody with vowel quality. To confirm productivity of the observed patterns, we conducted a wug experiment that tested the dependence of stress on vowel quality, word length, and tone. All in all, this paper brings forth new instances of phonetically unmotivated phonological processes at the suprasegmental level, which appear less discussed than at the segmental level. We also discuss methodological issues arising from artificial experiments on tonal processes.

Physical distancing is one of the non-pharmaceutical measures adopted to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Although it appears to be effective in mitigating this spread, its implementation in workplaces may undermine employees’ mental health. In fact, torn between the fear of contagion and the need to maintain their jobs, employees must also comply with physical distancing measures in the workplace, which alter social interactions and set a predetermined frame and distance that guide employees’ behaviors within the organization while they need empathy. This situation might increase their level of stress. This paper is a narrative review that addresses the impact of physical distancing in the workplace on employees’ mental health. It presents the main factors that might moderate this impact and it recommends organizational interventions that can help to mitigate it. Physical distancing measures in workplaces are necessary and inevitable. Notwithstanding, they might undermine employees’ mental health, whence the importance to implement proper organizational actions to support employees and to facilitate their adaptation, in this unprecedented organizational change. This paper examines a relatively unexplored topic. It goes beyond examining social isolation to explore how setting a predetermined frame and distance can have an impact on employees’ mental health and recommends interventions that might help organizations to prevent mental health issues.

In the present paper we will approach enactivism from the perspective of internal regulation: while the environment shapes the organism, it is also true that organisms have complex internal states with regulatory machinery with a set of continuous phenotype-environment interactions. The aim of the present paper is to provide a visual means to analyze these interactions in individuals and computational agents alike. An essential component of our approach is the representation of continuous internal states through the usage of the single continuous indicator we call an Allostasis Machine (AM). Consequently, we consider potential perturbation regimes for both naturalistic and virtual environments: within the naturalistic cases, it is possible to observe the effects of perturbations in isolation, or as overlapping, multiplicative events. In virtual cases, we can observe perturbations as the outcome of both realistic and fantastical environments. To conclude, we discuss how AMs can be utilized to improve our understanding of both the theoretical basis of embodied interaction and the dynamic regulation of complex psychophysiological states.

This paper proposes a qualitative study exploring anomalous self and world-experiences in individuals with high levels of depersonalization traits. Depersonalization (DP) is a condition characterized by distressing feelings of being a detached, neutral and disembodied onlooker of one’s mental and bodily processes or even of reality itself (‘derealization’). Feelings of depersonalization are extremely common in the general population, yet under-acknowledged and under-examined. Our findings indicate the presence of a wide range of anomalous experiences traditionally understood to be core features of depersonalization, such as disembodiment and disrupted self-awareness. However, our results also indicate experiential features that are less highlighted in previous work, such as faster time perception and blurriness of the self/other boundaries which may play a key role in altering one’s sense of self and sense of presence in the world. Our qualitative study provides an in-depth examination of self-reported disturbances of one’s relatedness to one’s self and the world, thereby shedding further light on the nature of altered subjective experiences in DP. In doing so, this paper draws attention to key aspects yet overlooked that may prove valuable for potential diagnosis and therapy. We conclude by highlighting limitations of this study and a number of open questions that further work needs to address in the future, in order to better understand this condition and to improve the quality of life of those experiencing depersonalization.

The paper explores the topic of organizational routines from a philosophical vantage point to see how the philosophy of action may help improve its understanding in organizational research. The main goal is to show the distinctive complexity of the intentional picture of routines. In this respect, the paper clarifies the interrelations between psychological habits and routines and describes similarities and differences between them. It also highlights the special place of mindfulness as a psycho-cognitive mechanism of action meta-control in intentional explanations of routine complexity.

Research on the efficacy of hypnosis applications continues to grow, but there remain major gaps between the science and clinical practice. One challenge has been a lack of consensus on what applications of hypnosis are efficacious based on research evidence. In 2018, six major hypnosis organizations collaborated to form a Task Force for Establishing Efficacy Standards for Clinical Hypnosis. This paper describes a Guideline for the Assessment of Efficacy of Clinical Hypnosis Applications developed by the Task Force which makes ten specific recommendations. The guideline is intended to be a tool for those who want to assess the quality of existing evidence on the efficacy of clinical hypnosis for any particular indication. The paper also discusses methodological issues in the interpretation and implementation of these guidelines. Future papers will report on the other products of the Hypnosis Efficacy Task Force, such as best practice recommendations for outcomes research in hypnosis, and an international survey of researchers and clinicians on current practice and attitudes about hypnosis.

Pakistani schools in Sultanate of Oman use the whole word approach in the practices of English language reading instructions and lack phonetics’ knowledge of. Regardless, whether the approach is practical or not, teaching reading skills through these practices at an early age is questionable. This paper will focus on observation and evaluation as research tools, and will concentrate on a phonetics and a phonological analysis of a first -grade learner as a case study. The learner’s reading of a text is compared with the reading of a native speaker. The focus of the paper is on two main characteristics of pronunciation; segmental and super-segmental. The analysis demonstrates a significant variation in speech sounds of the learner. The training opportunities in spoken language and reading skills for the teachers may fix the problem. Keywords: phonetics and phonology, segmental and super-segmental, International Phonetic

At present, the mental healthcare system cannot meet the demand for services, and the need-to-access gap is widest among children and adolescents. Single session interventions (SSIs) or brief, intentional, and mechanism-targeted prevention and intervention programs have shown promise in increasing the reach of effective, evidence-based services, but a wide gap still remains due to other structural barriers (e.g., workforce shortages). The present paper calls for the coupling of SSIs and mentor-delivered programs as a promising future step to further overcome the inaccessibility of youth mental health services. Indeed, capitalizing on the advantages of mentoring relationships (e.g., the associated interpersonal benefits and mentors’ pre-existence in most community settings) has the power to complement and enhance the value of SSIs, and to expand the acceptability and reach of evidence-based mental health services. In this paper, we discuss the anticipated benefits of mentor-delivered SSIs from multiple perspectives, as well as cautionary considerations related to the proposed model. To conclude, we highlight necessary implementation considerations prior to deploying any systems change.

Most theoretical and empirical discussions about the nature of consciousness are typically couched in a way that endorses a tacit adult-centric and vision-based perspective. This paper defends the idea that consciousness science may be put on a fruitful track for its next phase by examining the nature of subjective experiences through a bottom-up developmental lens. We draw attention to the intrinsic link between consciousness, experiences and experiencing subjects, which are first and foremost embodied and situated organisms essentially concerned with self-preservation within a precarious environment. Our paper suggests that in order to understand what consciousness is, one should first tackle the fundamental question: how do embodied experiences arise from square one? We then highlight one key yet overlooked aspect of consciousness studies, namely that the earliest and closest environment of an embodied experiencing subject is the body of another human experiencing subject. We present evidence speaking in favour of fairly sophisticated forms of early sensorimotor integration of bodily signals and self-generated actions already being established in utero. We conclude that these primitive and fundamentally relational and co-embodied roots of our early experiences may have crucial impact on the way human beings consciously experience the self, body and the world across their lifespan.

When researchers choose to identify and exclude outliers from their data, should they do so across all the data, or within experimental conditions? A survey of recent papers published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General shows that both methods are widely used, and common data visualization techniques suggest that outliers should be excluded at the condition-level. However, I highlight in the present paper that removing outliers by condition runs against the logic of hypothesis testing, and that this practice leads to unacceptable increases in false-positive rates. I demonstrate that this conclusion holds true across a variety of statistical tests, exclusion criterion and cutoffs, sample sizes, and data types, and shows in simulated experiments and in a reanalysis of existing data that by-condition exclusions can result in false-positive rates as high as 43%. I finally demonstrate that by-condition exclusions are a specific case of a more general issue: Any outlier exclusion procedure that is not blind to the hypothesis that researchers want to test may result in inflated Type I errors. I conclude by offering best practices and recommendations for excluding outliers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The goal of this paper is to shed new light on the relation between dream recall and dream experiences by providing a thorough analysis of the process that leads to dream reports. Three crucial steps of this process will be distinguished: dream production (the generation of a conscious experience during sleep), dream encoding (storing a trace of this experience in memory), and dream retrieval (accessing the memory trace upon awakening). The first part of the paper will assess how major theories think about the relationship between dream reports and these distinct steps. The second part will systematise how trait and state factors affecting dream recall — given different theoretical assumptions — might interact with dream production, encoding and retrieval. Understanding how the distinct steps of dream recall can be modulated by different factors is crucial for getting a better grip on how to acquire information about these steps empirically, and for drawing methodological conclusions with regard to the tools dream research relies on to collect subjective data about dream experiences. The third part of the paper will analyse how laboratory reports, logs and retrospective scales interact with the different factors that affect the distinct steps leading to dream reports, and will argue that prospective methods provide more direct access to data regarding dream production and encoding than retrospective methods, which — due to their inability to provide systematic control over the factors affecting the retrieval stage screen-off the variability in the production and the encoding of dreams.

We review a twenty year old paper on sex differences in human neonatal social perception, and identify a serious issue: a failure to assess whether the results were distorted by an exceptionally high Caesarean Section rate. This is in addition to a number of other methodological weaknesses, which together mean that there is too much ‘noise’ in the data to draw clear conclusions from the results. The paper’s stark conclusion to have ‘demonstrated’ biological sex differences is unsubstantiated and misleading, and it should no longer be considered a reliable reference point.

Neurological research has made amazing strides in recent years. Enough is now known about what specific brain areas do to make it possible to start examining how various parts of the brain interact. What is missing is a general theory of cognition to tie all of this information together. Back in the 1980s, a cognitive theory was developed that began with a system of cognitive styles and was expanded through an in-depth study of biographies. It was discovered at that time that this theory mapped in a general way onto the brain. This cognitive theory, known as the theory of mental symmetry, has recently been tested as a meta-theory by using it to analyze a number of fields and theories dealing with human thought and behavior. This paper shows that personality traits that were discovered by mental symmetry correspond in detail to the functioning of brain regions described in current neurological papers. In brief, the cognitive model suggests that there are seven cognitive styles: There are four simple styles, and there are three composite styles that combine the thinking of the simple styles. Two of the simple styles use emotions and emphasize a circuit composed of orbitofrontal cortex, inferior frontal cortex, temporal lobe, and amygdala, with one in the left hemisphere and the other in the right hemisphere. The other two simple styles use confidence and emphasize a circuit consisting of dorsolateral frontal cortex, frontopolar cortex, parietal cortex, and hippocampus, again with one in the left hemisphere and the other in the right hemisphere. The three composite styles form a processing chain. The first composite style combines the two simple emotional styles and emphasizes the ventral striatum, and dopamine. This leads to the second composite style, which combines the two simple confidence styles and emphasizes the anterior cingulate, the dorsal striatum, and serotonin. This is followed by the third composite style which balances the functioning of the mind and emphasizes the thalamus and noradrenaline.

This paper reviews the previous work on disgust from the perspective of moral judgment. Shweder et al. (1987) proposed that morality consists of three dimensions: autonomy, community, and divinity. This interpretation of morality serves as one’s rationale and/or standards in moral judgment. Haidt and his colleagues (2011) extended Shweder’s idea and developed it as Moral Foundations Theory (MFT). The purity foundation of the MFT corresponds to the divinity dimension of Shweder’s theory and is found to evoke disgust. What kind of behavior people should judge as morally wrong in terms of the purity foundation is shared among ingroup members, which makes them bound together; that is a social function of morality. Accordingly, their moral judgment leads violators to be socially excluded. Although understanding the purity foundation helps researchers clarify how ingroup members are eventually excluded, cultural differences in the concept of purity can exist, such as the unique purity orientation among the Japanese. In addition, this paper addresses such concepts relevant to social exclusion as moralization and moral elevation. The theoretical and practical findings from research on moral judgment will contribute to the better understanding of the mechanism of disgust being evoked and social exclusion being processed.

The study reported by McFadden, Pasanen, Maloney, Leshikar and Pho [2018, JASA 143(4):2338-54] investigated the effect of “sex, menstrual cycle and race” on performance in seven psychoacoustical tasks. Out of 35 comparisons related to the “race” factor, 2 were deemed significant by the authors. Based on these observations, the authors concluded that: "racial background needs to be considered when making generalizations about human auditory performance."Surprisingly, though, the same authors also admitted in various sections that the study had serious flaws. By carefully reviewing the paper, we have concluded that the flaws were at least as serious as what the authors feared. Yet, the paper is written in such a way that a casual reading would mislead the reader into thinking that the conclusions are legit. To such avoid such erroneous use of the paper, we recommend it to be retracted by the journal. This preprint is made public to attract further comments before we submit it to the journal.

As efforts to end systemic racism gain momentum across various contexts, it is critical to consider anti-racist steps needed to improve psychological science. Current scientific practices serve to maintain white supremacy with significant and impactful consequences. Extant research practices reinforce norms of homogeneity within BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color) populations, segregate theories and methods derived from BIPOC groups, apply disparate standards to the evaluation of research on white vs. BIPOC populations, and discourage BIPOC scholars from pursuing research careers. Perhaps consequently, mental and physical health disparities persist. In this article, we present examples of how epistemic oppression exists within psychological science, including in how science is conducted, reported, reviewed, and disseminated. Importantly, this paper offers a needed contribution by offering specific concrete recommendations for different stakeholders, including those involved in the production, reporting, and gatekeeping of science as well as consumers of science. Additionally, this paper critically moves beyond a discussion of problems and potential solutions by offering measurable outcomes that can ensure accountability. This diversity accountability index can be used by journal editors/publishers to measure potential benchmarks of progress, to promote dialogue and action, challenge inequity, and upend the influence of white supremacy in psychological science.

Belonging to a group, there are people who are always bullied no matter how they behave. They don't know how to treat their own emotions. So, I considered human emotions. I mathematically modeled human emotion processing in two stages: what kind of emotions we receive from events and how we react from the emotions we receive. The part that receives emotions from events and the part that responds from emotions are modeled by a one-dimensional random walk or Wiener process, and the distribution of individual emotions is represented by a fixed probability distribution. Therefore, I also showed that when individuals gather to form a group, the distribution of emotions is also represented by a fixed distribution. In addition, I showed as application examples of these models, the nature of events, the meaning of emotional distribution, and how to read the air, and how to deal with one's character, and how to show one’s reaction and what to do for events which have a large magnitude. *This paper is a revised version of these papers, https://psyarxiv.com/k3j4z/, https://psyarxiv.com/yrd9v/, https://psyarxiv.com/36g5w/.

Ukrainian Universities today encourage the principles of competency-based education in higher education, but the study of literature generally seems to discourage this process in a more theoretical way. The research reported here is a part of a more extensive doctoral study that aims to examine the process of competency-based education of English as Second Language teachers in Ukraine. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: could one apply the principles of competency-based education to create an appropriate educational environment for prospective English as Second Language teachers; would it improve the way to design the programs for their professional training and advance the language teaching process in Ukrainian Universities? This article reports on an investigation associated with the implementation of a pedagogical experiment that proves the effectiveness of the specially modeled educational environment created to design the training programs for prospective English as second language teachers within competency-based education at Taras Shevchenko National University and Donbas State Pedagogical University. This paper contains the comparative analysis of two Philology Master students groups to discover whether the traditional educational environment or competency-based one produces a better educational effect on the language teaching process. This study employs a mixed-method resulting in qualitative and quantitative data. The paper concludes by presenting recommendations for Ukrainian Universities, which major in training prospective English as Second Language teachers. Moreover, future research related to applying this educational model for students in different grades is still a potential area to be studied further.

The COVID-19 pandemic influenced entrance testing to the master program of psychology at the Masaryk University in 2020. An administration of the standard paper-and-pencil knowledge test was not possible; therefore, we chose the bachelor theses rating. This paper is “psychometrical casuistic”, which covers criteria development regarding content validity, design selection, and results. Two randomly selected raters rated each thesis, and we equated their severity using the logistic linear test model (LLTM) under the Item Response Theory (IRT) paradigm. This procedure resulted in the unidimensional and unbiased scores equated across 18 judges and 2 terms (n1 = 82, n2 = 48). The reliability was comparable to the standard tests, r = 0,869, and judges’ severity or criteria difficulty did not differ across them. The resulting rating seems to be valid and not less fair compared to the written exam. The proposed method can serve other departments and other goals, not only as an entrance test. We share an analytical script and all the necessary materials to enhance using the method.

The main purpose of this research is an in-depth look into how childhood can affect a person in any way, in particular serial killers. There are a few different types of abuse: psychological, physical, etc., and each of these different types has its own unique effects on a child. However, sometimes patterns can be observed which can link a serial killer’s patterns to his/her victim pool and modus operandi. The paper will observe two female serial killers up close and examine the psychological motives behind their heinous crimes and how their childhoods can be linked to their M.O. and victim pool. The paper cites that while there are many differences between these two women, there are also many similarities, some of which can not be directly observed.

Predatory journals often prey on innocent researchers who are unaware of the threat they pose. This paper discusses what researchers can do if they unintentionally publish a paper in a predatory journal, including measures to take before submission, during peer review, and after the journal has accepted a manuscript. The specific recommendations discussed are pre-registration, pre-submission peer-review, open peer-review, request for additional reviewers, post-publication peer review, open recommendation, and treatment as unrefereed. These measures may help to ensure the credibility of the article, even if it is published in a predatory journal. The present article suggests that an open and multi-layered assessment of research content enhances the credibility of all research articles, even those published in non-predatory journals. If applied consistently by researchers in various fields, the suggested measures may enhance reproducibility and promote the advancement of science.

This paper aimed to investigate the online learning experience of a group of ESL students at a higher learning institution in Oman during the Covid-19. The paper studied the interaction between the students’ preferred online learning style and the technologies the students experienced on the e-learning platform (Moodle) for the particular ESL course. The rationale for investigating the relationship between the students’ learning styles and the technologies the students experienced is to evaluate if the learning style and the technologies complement each other. It is also aimed to provide an evaluation of an ESL e-learning course by considering the different technologies that can be incorporated into the e-learning classroom to meet the different learning styles. Data was gathered from 32 undergraduate students by utilizing Kolb’s Learning Styles Inventory. The study included analysis of Moodle utilizing Warburton’s Technologies in Use (2007) to develop an understanding of the technologies the students experienced online. The results of the study revealed that the majority of the students’ preferred learning style is reflected in the technologies they experienced in the online classroom. As the relationship of the technology in use and the students learning style preference in the classroom complements each other, the study revealed that the emphasis of the particular skill-based pedagogy ESL classroom is on receptive skills (listening and reading). The lack of the students’ productive skills (speaking and writing) is a cause for concern to the ESL course instructors, policymakers, and the wider community.

Mental health is one of the most pressing challenges that we as humans are facing today. Despite the presence of various resources to detect and diagnose mental disorders, it continues to be an issue for a significant proportion of the world. Researchers are now exploring the application of natural language processing and deep learning on the diagnosis of these disorders.However, due to the lack of a systematic and organized set of data to train upon, many of them have often failed. In this review paper, we explore prominent techniques to diagnose a specific mental disorder – Depression. We analyze and review the work done in the field of depression detection from feeds of social media platforms. For our study, we investigated mainly 3 platforms – Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit.In the later sections of the paper, we aim to analyze another pressing topic of our study- The suitability of Social Media sources to act as data resources for the diagnostic tasks for mental health disorders. As the inclination of society towards social media increases, it evolves to become a better and robust outlet for people’s emotions and expressions. Whilst recording and obtaining logs of a particular patient’s visit with the therapist might be a more accurate description, however, it is one that is usually untimely and unlikely to be formally organized. In such scenarios, a patient’s posts on various social media platforms and his activity on the same provide a better turn of perspective to solve such problems.

The latent constructs psychologists study are typically not directly accessible, so researchers must design measurement instruments that are intended to provide insights about those constructs. Construct validation—assessing whether instruments measure what they intend to—is therefore critical for ensuring that the conclusions we draw actually reflect the intended phenomena. Insufficient construct validation can lead to the jingle fallacy—falsely assuming two instruments measure the same construct because the instruments share a name (Thorndike, 1904)—and the jangle fallacy—falsely assuming two instruments measure different constructs because the instruments have different names (Kelley, 1927). In this paper, we examine construct validation practices in research on listening effort and identify patterns that strongly suggest the presence of jingle and jangle in the literature. We argue that the lack of construct validation for listening effort measures has led to inconsistent findings and hindered our understanding of the construct. We also provide specific recommendations for improving construct validation of listening effort instruments, drawing on the framework laid out in a recent paper on improving measurement practices (Flake & Fried, in press). Although this paper addresses listening effort, the issues raised and recommendations presented are widely applicable to tasks used in research on auditory perception and cognitive psychology.

Across every area of our culture, the distinction between influential people and those below them is normal. There are figures of authority who conduct duties every day for us, and yet we are also lazy. In this paper, participants face the same order but of two distinct individuals-figures ofauthority or ordinary citizens-to test the difference in responses. The responses when the authority figure is specific are also checked. We seek to get the common public to address figures of authority in the Indian sense. Individuals appear to be more likely, without any proofor test, to obey certain rules and submit to certain individuals.This paper will bring out the biases and change in behavior of people, when encountered with authority figures, but of different genders.

A previous study we reported in this journal suggested that left and right handers may differ in their patterns of lateralisation for different language tasks. However, it had too few left handers (N=7) to reach any conclusions. For this update paper, further participants were added to the sample to create separate groups of left (N=31) and right handers (N=43). Two hypotheses were tested: 1) that lateralisation would be weaker at the group level in left than right handers; and 2) that left handers would show weaker covariance in lateralisation between tasks, supporting a two factor model.All participants performed the same protocol as in our previous paper: lateralisation was measured using functional transcranial Doppler sonography during six different language tasks, on two separate testing sessions. The results supported hypothesis 1, with significant differences in laterality between groups for four out of six tasks. For hypothesis 2, structural equation modelling showed that there was stronger evidence for a two factor model in left than right handers; furthermore, examination of the factor loadings suggested that the pattern of laterality across tasks may also differ between handedness groups. These results expand on what is known about the differences in laterality between left and right handers.

In this paper I postulate that the processing of concepts which are deemed controllable is rooted in neurological machinery located in the posterior parietal cortex specialised for the processing of objects which are immediately actionable because they are within reach. This is demonstrated with reference to the near-miss effect in gambling behaviour, where it is argued that the configurative proximity of the near-miss outcome to the win outcome creates the impression that the win outcome is ‘almost within reach’ or controllable. The perceived realisability of the desired outcome increases subjective reward probability and the associated expected action value, which impacts decision-making and behaviour. When extended to substance addiction, this novel hypothesis adds fresh insight into understanding the motivational effects associated with cue-exposure and opportunity for drug-taking. Moreover, by postulating that a perception of control can be generated to minimise unpleasant affective states, it can also reconcile contrasting models of decision-making and provide a neurological explanation for the efficacy of mindfulness-based techniques in treating addictions. With reference to the previously-hypothesised link between the self and control, these ideas can provide an explanation for the increased subjective value of self-associated concepts in the ‘endowment effect’, as well as a neurological correlate for the concept of the ‘narrative self’. This paper therefore provides an innovative and unifying perspective for the study and treatment of behavioural and substance addictions as well as contributing to our neurological understanding of philosophical approaches to the self.

Statistical Significance Testing -- or Null Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST) -- is common to quantitative CHI PLAY research. Drawing from recent work in HCI and psychology promoting transparent statistics and the reduction of questionable research practices, we systematically review the reporting quality of 119 CHI PLAY papers using NHST (data and analysis plan at https://osf.io/4mcbn/. We find that over half of these papers employ NHST without specific statistical hypotheses or research questions, which may risk the proliferation of false positive findings. Moreover, we observe inconsistencies in the reporting of sample sizes and statistical tests. These issues reflect fundamental incompatibilities between NHST and the frequently exploratory work common to CHI PLAY. We discuss the complementary roles of exploratory and confirmatory research, and provide a template for more transparent research and reporting practices.

Research has shown that stress impacts on people’s religious beliefs. However, several aspects of this effect remain poorly understood, for example regarding the role of prior religiosity and stress-induced anxiety. This paper explores these aspects in the context of the recent coronavirus emergency. The latter has impacted dramatically on many people’s well-being; hence it can be considered a highly stressful event. Through online questionnaires administered to UK and USA citizens professing either Christian faith or no religion, this paper examines the impact of the coronavirus crisis upon common people’s religious beliefs. We found that, following the coronavirus emergency, strong believers reported higher confidence in their religious beliefs while non-believers reported increased scepticism towards religion. Moreover, for strong believers, higher anxiety elicited by the coronavirus threat was associated with increased strengthening of religious beliefs. Conversely, for non-believers, higher anxiety elicited by the coronavirus thereat was associated with increased scepticism towards religious beliefs. These observations are consistent with the notion that stress-induced anxiety enhances support for the ideology already embraced before a stressful event occurs. This study sheds light on the psychological and cultural implications of the coronavirus crisis, which represents one of the most serious health emergencies in recent times.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss ethnic comparative research and the role of the “White control group” in such designs. Accordingly, there are two primary goals. First, to describe the rationale for ethnic comparative research, highlighting how research with White youth is based on different assumptions than research with ethnic minority youth. Second, to offer suggestions for how to conduct comparative research, ensuring that studies that include White samples are not conceptualized within a deficit framework. To this end, three recommendations are offered: 1) having a theoretical foundation for comparative studies, 2) including dynamic mediators to explain group differences, and 3) using mixed methods to reveal heterogeneity within groups. This paper is meant to serve as an explication of best practices that researchers could reference when designing their studies, providing rationale for their design, and responding to reviewer comments.